


it's the way he looks at you when you're not looking

by starfleetblues



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Era, Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Roommates, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:29:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfleetblues/pseuds/starfleetblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how James Tiberius Kirk realized he was in love with Leonard Horatio McCoy, and the repercussions of falling in love with your best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's the way he looks at you when you're not looking

**Author's Note:**

> I own no rights to Star Trek and all that jazz, yadda yadda. Just love writing about these two dorks.

Jim wasn’t exactly sure when he had fallen in love with Leo, nor was he sure if he was glad he did or if it was even remotely a good idea to fall in love with your best friend. Jim just sat down one day and realized that Leo was on shift, but damn if he didn’t miss his best friend. He flopped on Leo’s bed, inhaling the scent that was exclusive to the doctor- antiseptic mixed with his soap and signature musk. Sometimes, Jim would find himself smelling Leo’s pillow or a sweater when he was in their dorm alone. Jim will wrap himself in the blankets and rest on Leo’s bed, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he labels diagrams of a starship’s bridge for his Command 304: Bridge Protocols class, fluidly writes (in Vulcan) a paper on the impact first contact with Terra had on Vulcan culture for both Vulcan History 271: Vulcan Inter-Federation History and Vulcan Linguistics 244: Writing in Vulcan Formally, and writes an essay on the proper protocols for docking a shuttle both on a starship and at a spaceport for Piloting 407: Small Craft Travel in Space. He always ensures to leave his cocoon and make a nest on his own bed before Leo gets home, but his own scent, sweet and deep and rich, tinged with Leo’s soap and antiseptic remains on the bed, and it lulls Leo to sleep most nights, the comfort of knowing his own best friend would always be there for him, no matter what. Because Leo has managed to fall in love with his best friend as well, and he supposes it’s a result of them being lumped together as roommates and therefore spending all of their time together, but Jim knows exactly why he’s fallen in love with Leo, and it’s the same reason Leo has fallen in love with him. Jim realizes it a few days after he realizes he’s in love with Leo, and it’s that they met when they were each at their lowest points, with no one to love them and the capacity to love themselves gone, gone with the ex-wife and the hometown, gone with the motorbike and the daughter, gone with the lives they had known since they were born and had expected to know until they died. The capacity they once had to love themselves had disappeared with the former lives, and the capacity to love others was rekindled when they stepped onto that shuttle and into a new life, a life at Starfleet, one that was safe, that was kind, that was full of love and full of hope and new experience, but most importantly, was full of Jim and full of Leo. And the truth is, Jim loves Leo, loves him more than life and space and the idea of establishing a legacy outside of his father’s name, is in love with Leo the way he is in love with the freedom space offers, and Leo loves Jim the way he thought he loved Jocelyn and loves his daughter and loves the opportunity to start over that Starfleet offers, is in love with Jim the way he is in love with medicine and fixing broken lives. And they find it doesn’t need to be said, not once, after Jim awakes to find he has fallen asleep in Leo’s bed, but the doctor merely wrapped his own body around Jim’s and intertwined their fingers. They both know already.

**Author's Note:**

> I totally just like. Made these classes up off the top of my head lmao. I found some stuff online but I couldn't find any defined classes for any track at the Academy so I made some stuff up that would fit command track and Jim's interests too (like piloting is necessary for all tracks but all the diplomacy/history and shit would be part command track, part Jim, the bridge one would be a required command class probably; these are all based on stuff from a) my brother's college courses to be an air traffic controller b) me nerding out over Trek)


End file.
